Turns out women DO care about this kind of nonsense
As promised– I hereby publicly apologize for saying women did not understand or follow male notions of honor. Two, or maybe three, fair damsels of military bearing and warlike virtue, breathing out choler and manly wrath, have issued mortal challenges against me, because I dared to say that issuing mortal challenges over non-issues is a thing exclusive to men. I am proved wrong, and proved by the real example of it: here are Camilla and Penthelisea come to life, Joan of Arc and her sister Xena the Warrior Princess.
I give. I cry Uncle. I yield. I surrender.
(Now, if any of those women who offered to fight me ALSO offer to buy me a beer now that she has won, we will know that a masculine spirit of generosity and magnanimity is not absent from the fair sex also. )
On the other hand, I didn’t put up much of a fight, so maybe they wouldn’t think of offering me a beer. On the gripping hand, I did exactly as I said I would, admitting wrong rather than making up some dumb lawyerly excuse to maintain my position, so I may retain some honor for that, among philosophers, if not among soldiers and paladins.
One side-note: some people wrote in and seemed to think I was saying women are dishonorable, i.e. are not honest and trustworthy. You people win the Poor Reading Comprehension Prize. However, honor is honor, so if you are willing to fight and bleed and die over a perceived insult when no insult was given, this still proves the point, and, in fact, proves it better, that women can be as full of honor (by which I mean as full as macho machismo bulls-hit) as the boys.
Here is the proof:
Me:
Miss, are you outraged enough to fight me over the matter? Pistols at dawn, sabers or rapiers?
castaly replies:
absolutely–i’ll take the rapiers, thanks.
Me:
Rapiers! Pfui! Girlish weapon!!
But no matter: any girl willing to fight and die merely because a guy says girls are not willing to fight and die over trifles proves your point and carries the day. I concede: you have defeated me.
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Anonymous:
Even if women don’t fight themselves, they send the men out, encourage them, patch them up or bury them, raise their children to respect their fathers as being honorable for pursuing fights that may well be lost causes.
Me:
Oh, doubt this not! I should not have said anything that could even be misinterpreted to say women of honor do not know what it is like to bury their dead. So have women always done, since the sad dawn of our sad history in this sad world.
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Sophysduckling
It also ticked me off. I have no sense of honor? wtf? For that, I will come by and clean your clock. With my bare hands, if I need to, though obviously I prefer swords and can do pistols in a pinch. Sadly, though, I’m not in the USMC. Will the Army do
Me:
This lady is not merely willing to duel over this trifling matter; she also TALKS like a pissed-off guy. The offer to fight with bare hands if blade and bullet were disallowed is what cinches it. This gal is a REAL MAN. Go Army!
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My wife says:
The problem with your challenge, Handsome, is that someone might actually show up to fight you…in which case, I would, of course, feel obliged to throw myself in front of you to save you…which would kind of undue the whole point.
My comment:
No woman of honor will show up to fight me, because, as I said, I will wimp out and beg for mercy in public, whining like a craven toad, after offering an apology: in which case there is no honor to be gained in fighting me. I just wanted to prove that no women would care enough about (masculine notions of) honor to do so.
Beside, it would prove, not disprove my point, if a woman sacrifices herself for something practical, like her loved ones. It is the willingness to fight MERELY to improve one’s reputation the one loves to fight we are discussing.
I am happy to see that I am wrong: there are at least two or three women of the Spartan ‘tonight we dine in hell’ variety of manliness who have actually risen to the challenge.
Well, well—I am not sure what to make of this. Nonetheless, I made a universal statement, and even a single contrary example serves, in logic, to disprove a universal.
I leave it as a debate among the readers as to whether it is good thing or a bad thing that we have such masculine women among us. If BOTH sexes act this way, from whence is the voice of sweet reason to come?
(One big advantage, of course, is that our ladyfolk are evidently tough enough that they can beat up the French. If our women have bigger brass balls than the sick and cowardly Paynims who are our foes in the current round of the thousand-year-old war with Mohammedans, the psychological damage to our enemy will be significant.)
The other thing to note here is, that we have here on these last two threads, the spectacle of guys talking about honor in a fashion that shows they “get it” even less well than these three macho ladies. Make of that what you will.
In any case, I was wrong, and am happy (albeit dishonored) to admit wrong. The spirit of the Pioneer Woman is not dead. (I wish I knew the ages of these ladies, though, because I wonder if this is a too-young-to-know-better kind of thing. Nonetheless, a gentleman does not ask a lady her age.)
Now all you ladies go out and buy firearms and do likewise. You can look perfectly feminine shooting in a skirt. Remember to wear ear protection.
Let me not leave this topic without saying, in all sobriety, that there is something admirable in a man who is willing to duel, but something more admirable in a man whose highmindedness, justice and civility does not permit him to do so. A law code is better than an honor code; a moral code is better than either.
Do I really approve of dueling? For those of you who share my respect for the common law, here is dicta from the Virginia bench on this same topic. This basically sums up my opinion on the matter:
From Cullen v. Commonwealth, 24 Gratt. 624 (Va. 1873),
“…We sympathize fully with the legislature in their efforts to suppress the barbarous and anti-Christian practice of dueling. Having its origin in false pride and a mistaken sense of honor, and upheld and sanctioned to a certain extent by a vicious public sentiment, the practice has lingered in the Southern States much longer than it should have done, although condemned alike by the laws of God and man; and notwithstanding it has cost our country the lives of some of her noblest sons. We would gladly see it forever banished from our land. The practice is cruel in the extreme, and is founded neither in morals nor in reason, nor in common sense. It has been well and truly said that it proves nothing, except that the parties, as is commonly the case with male animals, are willing to fight. It not unfrequently results in the death of one or both of the combatants, and, the question which called them to the field of honor (so called) remains unsettled and is adjourned forever, leaving, quite as often as otherwise, the injured party the victim and the wrongdoer triumphant. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory and unreasonable…”
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
